The CASSM Colloquium Series is a space for researcher's interested in receiving feedback on their experimental designs prior to gathering any data. The abstract for this week's presenter can be found below.
Abstract
Emotions influence human behaviour and thereby also political behaviour. Yet research on emotions in political environments often misses the broader context of emotions among citizens. My research addresses the puzzle of how citizens’ emotions and government politicians’ responses interact, bringing together supply and demand side effects. Drawing on an adapted form of appraisal theory, I argue that politicians’ engagement with citizens’ emotions can affect political attitudes and behaviour independently of ideological preferences.
Through a discourse analysis I identify different types of emotional discourse in Germany regarding Russia’s war in Ukraine. As emotional discourse varies in both the extent and purpose of emotional, these different forms may have distinct effects on citizens. The findings of the analysis serve as the basis for a survey experiment which examines how political discourse influences citizens’ emotions and their affect toward government politicians. Analysing how variation in emotional engagement relates to political behaviour of citizens can provide new insight into government support, the development of political attitudes, and democratic resilience.
